Thursday, February 19, 2004

[IMPORTANT NOTE: I promise, I'm not a political blogger. I am not going to start blathering on about political things.]

[FURTHER CLARIFICATION: I support the right of any one adult, gay or otherwise, to legally marry any one other adult, gay or otherwise. I do not support the legal discrimination against or subjugation of any specified group of people.]

Our president is "troubled" by same-sex marriages. Troubled.

He is not troubled by national debt, corporate corruption, children living in poverty, destruction of wildlife, shattered foreign relations, or even the launching of a war based on pretense. None of these things trouble our president.

But two people falling in love and making a binding, legal commitment to support one another. Now, that's troubling.

No, I mean it. I can see why this is a national crisis worthy of constitutional intervention. These two committed people, once granted the right to publicly care for one another, might think it is also within their right to care for children (or pets, for that matter). Two caring parents dedicated to providing a stable family life? Think of those poor kids!

I am troubled that when the leader of our country states that "people need to be involved in this decision," and that "marriage ought to be defined by the people not by the courts," he doesn't mean those people.

I'm troubled that he thinks it's right to deny a person full participation in our society if that person falls outside his rich, white, heterosexual definition of the norm.

Anyway, of course gays can get married. They can get married right now if they want to. A gay person can march into any courthouse in the United States right this very minute and marry someone, as long as their genitals don't match.

In fact, any man can marry any woman. Even if they're perfect strangers. On a dare. For five minutes. After several too many beers.